A nomination for Parveen

Today's McGill Reporter, the administration run weekly campus newspaper, features in full colour the 'Exceptional staff and teachers'. It has the usual mix of professors, deans and other administrators- but what drew my attention was a beaming man in a blue shirt with a broom stick. That is Mr. Pietro who won the Principals award for exceptional staff in trades and service category. According to the report, Pietro is service man in the Arts Building of the University for nearly 35 years, making sure offices, hallways, and classrooms are always clean and functional- conducive for productive research and learning. Pietro is seen proudly grinning with his broomstick.

That made me thinking- if I had to give an award for the outstanding staff in the physics department of IISc, my alma mater, who would I give it to. To Parveen, of course.

Parveen is not a professor; she is not even a research student- she has not yet authored single scholarly publication. Yet, I would say, she is more useful to the department than many of its professors. Indeed, about eighty percent of professors are mere parasites who do not contribute anything to research or learning, merely living on the glory created by the rest.

Parveen is our sweeper. Though she is a good sweeper, what makes an easy choice is that her long time companions have left the scene and she is virtually without any competition for the award.

Eight years back when I joined the department as a graduate student, Parveen was a cheerful plump lady, accompanied by her friends Reena and Shanthamma. I soon found the trio to be a pleasant variation to the department that only had unfriendly and exceptionally dour faces everywhere. They were there on the hallways wherever you went, sweeping, mopping, chatting, and laughing. They even mocked people- we were never short of pompous people who could be helped with a little mocking. It was always Parveen who led the gang, Shanthamma and Reena could only follow her. Indeed, left to themselves, they could only give a timid smile- It was Parveen who made them laugh.

Shanthamma must have been the eldest. It is hard to say from the appearance alone, after years of toil and poverty, appearance can misleading. Nevertheless, she looked old. By far she was the smallest too- she was a short, thin, lady with eyes indicating deep pain and misery, but with a face that always had a mild smile, Shanthamma was a motherly figure in the department. Left to herself, she walked quietly, smiled at everyone, stopped to exchange niceties with people she knew. She considered everyone as somehow related to her, though we, the thankless wretches, did not reciprocate the feeling.

Reena was the youngest, she was in her late thirties. She looked as big and as stout as Parveen- but her face bore a stupid or innocent expression, that made us all think that she was actually an overgrown girl. Dark, heavy, and muscular, she walked with heavy steps, and made the whole building shake under her steps. Come face to face with any of us, she would blush and give us one of her typical smiles.

But with Parveen both Shanthamma and Reena became bolder and talkative, they even did not mind taunting us a bit if Parveen was around. Parveen's energy must have been contagious. Because even when we spoke to her we felt like jumping and shouting afterwards. Parveen's age was anywhere between Reena's and Shanthammas, and she looked ageless between these two extremes.

We were always busy in the department with our experiment, seminars, and various talks and discussions. We had our share of intellectuals, rightists, leftists, Trotskytes, fascists, and Naxals, always engaged in some pointless discussions that made no one any better. Meanwhile Parveen and co came in the morning, did their sweeping and mopping till the evening, day after day. We always took them for granted, and complained if there was more dust in the room. We had our comfortable hostels in the campus; but they came just beyond our walls, from a world we did not know, worked among us to clean the offices and classrooms till evening, and disappeared in the evening to the same mysterious world. While they knew everything about us and our life, little we knew about them.

I once got a hint of what it might be like, when one day for the first time, I saw Parveen crying; she was talking to a professor, pleading to him to put her case in the next departmental meeting. The professor was kind, wanted to be gentle and nice, but he was embarrassed. I do not know if he did put her case to the meeting, but it did not have any effect. I learned later that Parveen was asking for a salary hike. All salaries in the department had gone up in the intervening years by huge proportions, but Parveen and co were working on the same salary they started with fifteens years back. They started with a salary of Rs. 1500. In Bangalore at that time you could not even rent a shack in a slum for that money.

They were all contract employees. Though they were working in the institute all time, the institute was not related to them- as far as the institute was concerned, a contractor supplied them. Parveen, Shanthamma, and Reena were buried in the total number employees contractor provided to the institute. This was just becoming a norm those days, as it was more convenient and profitable. As they were not one of 'our own', their working condition could be safely ignored, there was no obligation when they were sick or dead- contractor would quietly find another one, and the number would not change as far as the institute was concerned. But Parveen believed some day professors would take note of her hard work and dedication, and some committees would take pity and regularise all of them. What did she know about those shrewd policymakers!

Sickness did visit them, only they were left to fight it all alone. If it was headache or fever they came nevertheless. The contractor was not a very kind man to allow them to rest at home and to pay them.

But then Shanthamma started taking long leaves. When she came back intermittently, she looked much older. Sometimes we did not see her for weeks and months together, and we did not to bother to find out as long as there was somebody else to do the work. One day we received email from a good clerk in the office- Shanthamma was diagnosed with cancer- and she need our support; after working in the department for more than fifteen years, she had to depend on the charity of its student and professors to fight for her life. Places like Canada would take care of its people when they are ill; but in India you have to face it all alone, helpless and abandoned. To make it worse there are all those doctors, laboratories, and hospitals. These scavengers are much more malicious than the malady itself. Shanthamma must have wanted to die sooner. There was no other way for her.

Shanthamma left us without any complaints. Parveen and Reena continued their work with less vigour. Shanthamma's silent presence had meant a lot for them, and they missed her quite badly. It was Parveen who suffered most. We noticed a visible change in her face that could not have been the result of grief alone. Her cheeks started sagging from both sides, eyes became dull and lifeless. Walking became more and more difficult for her. Suddenly she seemed to have aged. She brought in her daughter with her to help with cleaning. She still foolishly believed that she had some claim on the job, and when the institute regularizes the job at least her daughter would get it. Now there were two people working on that paltry sum still hoping for some miracle.

Then came another blow. One day, Reena died.

It was a massive heart attack. Why it had to be that way, I have no idea. As if they did not have enough trouble already. Reena could not afford to die just then; her husband had passed away a few months back in similar manner. She was the sole bread winner for an aging mother and her three school aged girls.

In our department Parveen was the one who took it hardest. We all were sorry, of course. We would miss Reena and her innocent smile. But Parveen lost her sole working companion. She looked like a ghost of her former self.  Despite her sorrow, Parveen mustered all her courage. To her, it was important to keep the death of Reena hiding from the authorities, and possibly contractor. They should not recruit someone else and snatch away Reena's job when it will be regularised. She found an ingenious plan- she enlisted those small girls to do the work Reena was doing. Everybody knew her intentions, and they all pretended as if they did not know anything.

If you go to the department now you would most probably see a fat old woman, who can hardly walk, somehow dragging herself from door to door, panting heavily every now and then, giving instructions to a bunch of girls who should be at school now. If you have the picture of Parveen as a boisterous lady, as I tried to describe her in the beginning, you would be disappointed to see her now. There is nothing that would show the signs of the Parveen that she was. She and her retinue, all those girls who want to inherit the job some day, would rather look like a funeral procession now.

Or who knows- I am writing this about Parveen sitting across continents. The institute probably has hired a new contractor now who has cleaner looking staff- you know, with nice uniforms and so on. That would have put an end to Parveen's fifteen year old chase after the mirage.

When I saw Mr. Pietro beaming with his award, and proudly showing off his broomstick, I just wished that if we could at least once recognise Parveen for her dedication and hard work, before she too follows Shanthamma and Reena. If we could allow her just once to take pride in what she did all her life. Or is that too much to ask ?

[image courtesy: http://www.guardianangel.in/ga//uploads/mailer_pics/cleaning_lady.jpg]